Candy Crowley’s Acts of Terror

Both campaigns objected to Candy Crowley’s attempts to insert herself into the debate before it even happened, to no avail. The media is predictably patting her and Martha Raddatz on the back for inserting themselves into the debate, unlike Jim Lehrer who allowed the debate to happen. The next debate should be moderated by Bob Schieffer who may actually behave like a professional and not try to make the debate about him.

The moderator will not ask follow-up questions or comment on either the questions asked by the audience or the answers of the candidates during the debate or otherwise intervene in the debate except to acknowledge the questioners from the audiences or enforce the time limits, and invite candidate comments during the 2 minute response period.

Candy Crowley accepted it and then violated it repeatedly, most egregiously when she falsely claimed that Obama had called Benghazi a terrorist attack. Not only was she a liar and wrong… but attempting to fact check Romney was so far outside her role in the debate that she was acting like the third candidate.

Crowley has since admitted that Romney was mostly right. The usual lib spin machines at Media Matters and Think Progress are trying to salvage this mess by treating Obama’s boilerplate rhetoric about “Acts of Terror” as a statement that this was a terrorist attack.

“Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. But there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence. None. The world must stand together to unequivocally reject these brutal acts…No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.”

Acts of Terror can be defined as just about anything. If Obama meant terrorism, then he found the vaguest possible way to say it.

Rather than discussing this attack specifically, Obama mentioned “Acts of Terror” in the plural and applied it as a general statement of values, rather than a description of events.

Note: we added this statement to the timeline after Josh Gerstein of Politico asserted that the phrasing “acts of terror” showed Obama acknowledged “terrorism” was behind the attack. From our many years of covering diplomacy we would say there is a world of difference, but readers can draw their own conclusions.

Reporters, actually reporters, questioned that assertion in the press gaggle.

Jay said that the President referred to the attack in Libya the next day, on September 12th, as an act of terror. In his public remarks that day what he said was, “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation,” which could be perceived as being a comment on the general situation in the region, not necessarily directed towards Libya specifically.

Time Magazine after this debate, called Obama’s “Acts of Terror” assertion a weak reed.

But let’s pass over the wording debate for a moment to get at the heart of the problem. Why was the media so desperate to bring in people like Raddatz and Crowley to control the debate?

They did it because they knew that Obama and Biden needed assistance. And that’s what they provided. And they were upset at the idea that a debate could take place without one of them in control of it. Before the debate, petitions were circulated by NOW and other liberal groups upset that Candy Crowley was being silenced. But the point of a moderator is not to provide cheap liberal thrills by intervening in a debate. If you want to be heard during a presidential debate, then you need to be one of the candidates.

Candy Crowley blatantly violated the Memorandum for her own ego and for her own politics. And the fact that there will be no accountability for her misbehavior or her lying is another reminder why moderators should no longer could from the journalist class, but from a class of professionals who do not have a dog in the race.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.

infidel4life

Like the Left cares about rules?

benjabo

If Goodyear need a new blimp, they can hire Candy Crowley

Florence

Candy Crowley should be fired for her lies in front of millions of americans….Thank God Obama's poll ratings dropped 10 % because of her…..

Left_Coast

It's a sad thing knowing there's a lot of folks that can't be counted on to just do the right thing. No- it's lie, cheat, steal, obfuscate, deflect, subvert. We are all flawed, as humans. But, come on, already. There is honor is adhering to very simple forms of common decency. What I read, see and hear about anymore is juvenile.

Down the road, when things hopefully have turned around, it will be really hard to see these people in a different light than the ones they've chosen to cast themselves in these last four years. I think they deserve how they're going to go down in history. We'll see a lot of re-inventing of ones selves. However, I believe there are more people with long memories than what is believed, presently. People get upset when given a bushel of road apples, a plastic smile and a wish for happy eating.

charlie

All the focus is on the term 'act of terror', but what did Obama mean by this:

"Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. But there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence. None."

There is no room for spin here. He is clearly linking the deaths in Benghazi to an angry response to the Islam film.

And yes, Crowley was awful.

oldtimer

Since the questions were taken from an audience of everyday people (I hope), the moderator should also have come from an unbiased source. This was a given, everyone knew what would happen as soon as she was given the job..Disgraceful, mockery of our country and all it's people.

Anthony

Can you imagine a raucous drunk night at the bar and waking up with Candy Crowley next to you on the bed puffing on a cigarette?

mjazzguitar

When I first saw her, I wondered just how far SNL would go in spoofing this debate.

benjabo

You wouldn't have enough money feed that fat oinker

benjabo

I have a suggestion,eliminate the human moderator, who has been slanting the debates to suit his/her own views, replace him with a computer that will automatically shut off the candidate when his alloted amount of time has expired

We're in the computer age, everything is done by comptuers, do it here too!!

a.men

Agreements to obama thugs are freeways for the opposite — interrupt Romney, give Romney less time to respond, let obummer run out the clock with unanswered lies to Romney's record.

Lawless thugs cannot adhere to a debate agreement. We've seen it 3 times. Romney should refuse to do third debate as Hermann Cain suggested.

Romney 2012.

visitor

Ms. Crowley never agreed to the overly restrictive terms proposed by the campaigns. Anyway, she is a journalist, not a door mat. She asked questions and wouldn’t let either candidate hog the floor. Look, your guy won the first debate fair and square. So this time the president ignored the GOP’s “no fighting back” rule and outperformed your guy, as the polls show: http://www.haaretz.com/news/u-s-elections-2012/u-…. Your guy will get another chance so quit whining.

Gislef

By accepting the job of moderator, she did. That's kind of the point of having rules of moderation which were agreed to by both sides.

She ignored both candidates' "the mdoerator doesn't fight back" rule.

visitor

First, the "rules" you think were violated were not set by the Commission but by the candidates. The Commission never signed off on their restrictive agreement and Crowley was selected by the Commission, not by the candidates. Second, on substance, after Obama lost the first debate, the left lambasted the moderator for letting Romney bogart the debate (including quarreling over the rules). Now that Romney has lost the second debate, the right is blaming the moderator, just as the left did previously. Face facts: Obama lost the first debate because he gave a lousy performance and Romney lost the second one, though he got in some licks. There is one more debate left and, most important, an election in which the voters will decide who we want to be our president. Both parties should concentrate on selling their candidate and his policies, not on blaming the media. If you win, YOU win; if you lose, YOU lose. Blaming the media is a poor excuse.

Gislef

And yet Obama had more speaking time during the first debate than Romney did…

benjabo

Obama & Biden, both had more time than they were entitled to have.
Obama can't stop talking & he proved it
Biden also got more time than his share

benjabo

Crowley SIGNED the agreement, which to any normal person would have meant she agreed to the agreement

benjabo

Crowley agreed in WRITING & SIGNING HER NAME TO IT
She had only ONE FUNCTION, to ask questions, not to comment
You should have read the terms & condtions, before you wrote your load of nonsense

"The moderator will not ask follow-up questions or comment on either the questions asked by the audience or the answers of the candidates during the debate or otherwise intervene in the debate except to acknowledge the questioners from the audiences or enforce the time limits, and invite candidate comments during the 2 minute response period."

She was supposed to be a "Referee", not a player

Candy Crowley accepted it and then violated it repeatedly, most egregiously when she falsely claimed that Obama had called Benghazi a terrorist attack. Not only was she a liar and wrong… but attempting to fact check Romney was so far outside her role in the debate that she was acting like the third candidate.

Crowley has since admitted that Romney was mostly right. The usual lib spin machines at Media Matters and Think Progress are trying to salvage this mess by treating Obama’s boilerplate rhetoric about “Acts of Terror” as a statement that this was a terrorist attack.

Domus Canus.

When you dragged the bizarrely left leaning Haaretz into your comment, all was lost.

2012

Obama's comments on Sep 12th confirm once again that the early intelligence indicated that this was an act of terrorism. The administration later realized that an act of terrorism was not good politically with an election coming and they thought they could fool people for just a few weeks until the election. With the help of the media, maybe they will.

Guest

ummmm… WAHHHHHH!!!! What a bunch of cry babies. Do you people have any dignity left?? You're whining whether or not calling something 'an act of terror' is acknowledging terrorism. Are you political positions so weak and tenuous that THESE are the things you're moaning about the following day?? Go have your mommies change your dirty diapers and put some powder on your sore bottoms.

Gislef

You might check all of the other points raised about the debate, President Obama's lies and mistruths, and so on.

There are certainly people on the left side of the fence out there "whining" about Romeny and his alleged lies. Presumably you're saying the same thing to them?

Guest

What other points are being raised here about the debate? This article is about that 1 point, a petulant rant by a half-wit and an echo chamber of his quarter-wit conservative readers. The president was better last night and it had little to do with a Candy Crowley.

When Al Gore had the idiotic idea that the presidents performance in the first debate was due to the change in altitude, I've said (not here, first time reader) he was ridiculous. That the president did poorly in the first debate had nothing to do with the altitude or Jim Leher and the suggestion that either was the case is insulting.

The lot of you should quit being such sore losers. That Romney simply did OK last night somehow shatters your worldview to the point where the only focus here can be a bit of bellyaching about the moderator and a highly questionable point about word choice is simply sad.

Gislef

Did you read the two articles here about the after-debate poll numbers and the points therein? But yes, an article about 1 point is about… 1 point.

Romney did better than okay. So did Obama.

Meanwhile, you haven't really explained why even if the President said it was an act of terrorism (hint a mob of non-terrorists attacking a consulate is still an act of terror), he then spent two weeks saying it was the video and not an act of terrorism.

Gislef

Plus the article is about moderator bias. The incident in question was the most obvious point. If you want to discuss other instances when the moderator was biased, go for it!

But in fact, even if Romney lied, that kind of misses the point. Ms. Crowley's job wasn't to fact-check. Even if was, she didn't fact-check President Obama's statements. So she wasn't doing her job (by doing more than was required), and she wasn't doing it in an even-handed manner when she did do that little bit more.

Gislef

You also seem to be assuming that Romney lost, insofar that people are "sore losers."

amused

Dignity ? are you serious ? Cognizant dissonance is more like it . Romneys persistence on hanging on to one word semantics was ill advised , as only in conservative echo chambers like this one , you can lie -get outted -and then repeat the same lie as if nothing happened …lol…not so with Crowley -score one for forcing Romneys nose in his own lie . Someone had to do it .

Gislef

One-word semantics… and two weeks of Obama blaming the video, not terrorists.

Gislef

Since Crowley has admitted Romney was right and Obama was wrong, apparently she wasn't the one to do it.

Gislef

A better question would be, in the course of a 3,890 word speech at the UN, President Obama only mention terrorists once (only to condemn Iranian support of terrorists), but spent 2,211 words condemning the video and talking about the tensions between the Western and Arab worlds.

Plus when talking about the consulate attack, Obama specifically says, "And on this we must agree: there is no speech that justifies MINDLESS VIOLENCE."

PaulRevereNow

WHAT are you talking about? (Romney's nose in his own lie?) Did Obama call the Benghazi attack on the US Embassy a terrorist attack or not? That is the question here. The answer is, No, he didn't. This question is not one of "semantics," but goes to the heart of Obama's criminal failure to protect the U.S. Embassy. Pure and simple, this is treason, not semantics. But aren't you the one who talks about
"The Buck stops here," as said by Harry Truman? Why should Obama be held to a different standard?

Amused

kick yourselves to sleep tonight sycophants , but before you do , raise a glass for Candy ….I'll think about you hatemongers while I raise mine .

Gislef

Two-word semantics. "acts" = plural. "terror" <> "terrorism.

amused

Was that Romney's " coup-de-gras " ? Keep repeating like a little broken record parrot ? Until he gets an answer his handlers told him to like ? The audiene Romney appealed to were idiots .

Gislef

Romney unfortunately didn't give the real coup de gras.

In the course of a 3,890 word speech at the UN, President Obama only mention terrorists once (only to condemn Iranian support of terrorists), but spent 2,211 words condemning the video and talking about the tensions between the Western and Arab worlds.

Plus when talking about the consulate attack, Obama specifically says, "And on this we must agree: there is no speech that justifies MINDLESS VIOLENCE."

amused

in Romneys small squirming lizzard mind , he thought he did . glad you picked up on Obama's meaningfull words .

Gislef

Yup. "mindless violence" <> "terrorism.

benjabo

You still have to disprove what Romney had said, you're dancing all around evadng the answers the President should have given him
I have an extensive list of Obummers lies, your's upon request

Rob

The question wasn't what Obama was going to do about the attack or why did it take so long to call it a terrorist attack. The question was why did there request for more security turn down and who turn them down. This is the real question that Obama needs to answer and he won't. That is why our Hillary left the country. Bet she won't come home till after the election.

gina

Caught up in the momentum of debate, Ms.Crowley failed in her role as moderator. America would have been better served had she been able to muzzle her impulses and simply remind Romney of the rules.

We're only human, allowed to make mistakes…just hard to live em down. Regarding the Rose Garden: My guess is that Obama being Obama would have chosen to go with vagueness over aggressive terms which he probably felt would incite a worse response from the 'aggressors'. The King of Kowtown..

sabashimon

Just one more thing Israel and America have in common……. an actively leftist media that will do anything in their power to advance their agenda.
Until that changes it will be an uphill battle for those in both countries who have declined to drink the Kool-Ade.

amused

You guys are already swimming in the kool-aide

Left_Coast

"It's party time, Chumps."

fred

The fact is Crowley had no authority to hinder the debate in any way, She should be banned from ever being involved in anything related to journalism period.

Chelmer

I love the statement, “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.”

Why? Because it’s a toggle statement: you can flip the toggle back and forth as often as you like. If you want to say that the President failed to call Benghazi an act of terror, he could answer, “I clearly called it an act of terror. It’s right there in the text of my statement.” If on the other hand, you want to say that the President indeed called it an act of terror, he can reply, “I never said Benghazi was an act of terror, I was speaking in general terms.”

Beautiful. And statements pointing it out that these are weasel words have no power to make an impression on the army of idiot voters who’ve sent Obama to the WH twice.